Defence ministers and the politics of civil-military labour in Chile: a dialogue with Huntington’s The Soldier and the State

Defence labour division is a complex process of policy-making where political and military interests collide, most especially, in recently democratised countries. Samuel Huntington’s theoretical concepts, described in his book The soldier and the state (1957) continue to influence the debate over the best approach to assure civilian control of the military, and the potential for civilian connivances with defence labour. This article reviews Huntington’s work to explore the role of the minister of defence, the relationship with the president, the executive cabinet, and the military in post-authoritarian Chile. It discusses the managerial style of the minister according to the three labels offered by Huntington: the spokesman, the business manager, and the policy-strategist. The article challenges Huntington’s prescriptive division of labour in order to understand modern defence governance and some of the fundamental changes to civil-military relations that have occurred since re-democratisation in 1990.